


Vigil

by LuthienLuinwe



Series: Batfam Bingo 2019 [3]
Category: DCU, Outsiders (Comics)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Injury, Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation, Gen, Guilt, Gun Violence, Hospitals, Intubation, Near Death Experiences, Shooting, Waiting Rooms, batfam bingo, hurts to breathe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-31 07:24:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19421224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuthienLuinwe/pseuds/LuthienLuinwe
Summary: For the Batfam Bingo Hurts to Breathe."Dick would have loved to have been able to say that he had handled the situation in a calm and graceful manner. But lying was something he never had particularly liked, and the truth of the matter was that there had been witnesses who would definitely say otherwise.Bruce had always trained him to stay calm in emergency situations. To stay calm in any situation, really. Step back. Dissociate. Panic later once it was safe to.And honestly, had it been anyone else, Dick was pretty sure he would have been fine.But it hadn't been anyone else.It had been Roy.And when Roy had gone down, he’d gone down hard.It's a long 48 hours after Roy gets shot on a mission gone wrong.





	Vigil

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to Shu for the title suggestion.
> 
> I have never written Helena before, and my knowledge of her comes only from a few panels I've seen on Discord, so please excuse any OOCness.

Dick would have loved to have been able to say that he had handled the situation in a calm and graceful manner. But lying was something he never had particularly liked, and the truth of the matter was that there had been witnesses who would definitely say otherwise.  


Bruce had always trained him to stay calm in emergency situations. To stay calm in any situation, really. Step back. Dissociate. Panic later once it was safe to.

And honestly, had it been anyone else, Dick was pretty sure he would have been  _ fine _ .

But it hadn't been anyone else.

It had been Roy.

And when Roy had gone down, he’d gone down  _ hard _ .

He couldn’t quite remember what it was he’d said when he’d seen Roy recoil backward. He was fairly certain it wasn’t anything good or nice. Definitely not something he would have said in polite company, that was for damned sure.

It had all happened in slow motion.   


He was certain it was only seconds, maybe minutes, from the time Roy had turned to the time the bullet had pierced through his chest to the time he was on the ground.

He was certain it was only seconds before he had ran over to his friend, pushing his hands down onto the wound as hard as he could.

But seconds had felt like hours and he was pretty sure that wasn’t a good sign.

The fact of the matter was that Roy had been standing and laughing and ready to fight just minutes prior.

And now Dick was standing over him and praying to every god he’d ever heard of that they wouldn’t take his best friend away from him.

He tried to stay focused on Roy’s chest, keeping his eyes on his hands covering the wounds. But blood was flowing through the spaces between his fingers, dark red, sticky, and warm, and it was taking everything in his power to keep it together because the last thing either of them needed was for Dick to lose it.

Because panic got people killed.

Panic led to sloppy mistakes. Panic led to decreased awareness on surroundings. Panic led to unclear minds.   


And Dick was  _ not  _ about to let Roy die on him.

He couldn’t let Roy die on him.

And he couldn’t look at Roy’s face because he knew what he’d see. Pale skin. Droopy eyelids. A face twisted in pain. Teeth clenched to keep from screaming, maybe.

And if Dick saw that?

Then cool and collected was going to go straight out the window.

Or, at least, what was left of cool and collected.

“Don’t do this,” he pleaded, voice barely above a whisper. He wondered if Roy had even heard him. Not that it mattered. “Don’t you dare do this to me, Roy,” he hissed and pushed down harder even though he knew it wouldn’t stop the bleeding. The bullet had gone deep. Roy needed a hospital, not a vigilante with first aid training and no kit.

Helpless had never been a feeling Dick liked.

He had been helpless when the trapeze wires supporting his parents had snapped.

He had been helpless when the same damn group responsible for hurting Roy had hurt him.

And he was helpless now, kneeling next to Roy and putting pressure on a wound that wouldn’t stop bleeding and would keep bleeding until there was no blood left.

He hated the feeling. The sick, twisty feeling in the pit of his stomach. How the air he was trying to breathe seemed to get stuck in his throat, not reaching his lungs. How his hands started shaking and how he started sweating even though it was cold in the room…

He had vowed he would never be helpless again.

But when had the universe ever really cared about a damned thing Dick Grayson wanted?

He had to stay focused. Because if he lost focus, Roy would die. And he couldn’t let Roy die on him…

Even pressure. Make sure the blood was still dark red. Because if it turned bright red, they were shit out of luck even if Gotham’s best paramedics decided to show up.   


He could feel Roy’s chest rising and falling under his hands. His breath was irregular, strained, but still fairly strong, and Dick was more than grateful for it. “Talk to me, Roy,” he begged, voice cracking, though he’d deny it later.

“That bastard shot me,” the redhead spoke, voice strained and quiet, but with a hint of amazement somewhere beneath.   


Dick breathed a sigh of relief at that.

Roy was speaking. Which meant he wasn’t unconscious. Which meant he wasn’t dead.

Yet.

“That bastard shot you,” Dick nodded in agreement, finally forcing himself to look at his friend.

True to his suspicion, Roy’s face had gone deathly pale. His eyes looked slightly glazed. But his face seemed more shocked than pained.

And Dick wasn’t sure that was much better.

He watched Roy’s eyes drift down to Dick’s hands, covered in Roy’s blood and shaking slightly despite his best efforts to keep them still. “Yeah, that’s bad,” Roy groaned and shut his eyes, and Dick wanted to smack him. Hard. Anything to keep his eyes open.

Because the sick, twisty feeling in the pit of his stomach told him that if Roy’s eyes closed, they wouldn’t open back up again.

“Look at me, Roy,” he commanded and let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding when Roy’s eyes snapped back open. His gaze was unfocused. Confused.  _ How much blood has he lost?  _ “You can sleep later, okay?”   


It had all happened in slow motion.

Roy had opened his mouth to speak.

Dick had felt the other man’s chest heave under his hands.

He had watched, completely helpless, as Roy’s eyes rolled back into his head.

“No, no, no, Roy,” Dick had shook his head.

He hadn't even realized he’d moved his hands away from the hole in Roy’s chest to try and shake him awake. Not until he’d gotten to the damned hospital waiting room and looked down to see blood stains on the front of his uniform.

And just as quickly as someone had seemed to press the slow motion button, someone had ripped the remote and punched fast forward.

He had struggled when someone had pulled him away from Roy. He was aware of that much.

_ Don’t take him,  _ he couldn’t remember if he’d thought or screamed.

_ Bag him. _

_ Start compressions. _

_ Push five of epi… _

_ Someone get that guy out of here! _

_ Don’t die,  _ Dick had begged silently as a medic all but dragged him away.  _ Please, please don’t die. _

* * *

He had been sloppy with his identity. He was sure Bruce would give him hell about it later. Because it was Nightwing who entered the hospital asking after Roy Harper, and it was Dick Grayson who had stayed.

Helena had brought him a change of clothes and a cup of coffee. He was fairly certain he’d never gotten out of his Nightwing suit faster in his life. He had tried to scrub Roy’s blood off his face, his neck, his hair... anything his suit hadn't been covering. But no matter how hard he scrubbed, it was just a bathroom sink and it was just hand soap and it  _ wouldn’t come off. _

Roy had been down for five minutes by the time the ambulance had arrived.   


The cardio resident had wanted to call it, but the trauma attending hadn't let her.

Dick made a mental note to get that doctor’s name and send her the best thank you gift he could think of.

He had returned to the waiting room dressed in a pair of jeans and a long sleeved t-shirt. He had sat down next to Helena and ignored the coffee cup that was still sitting where he’d left it when he’d gone to change.

He doubted he could keep anything down, and he definitely wasn’t willing to try.

“I called Dinah and Ollie,” she spoke, and Dick just nodded and stared off at the wall across from where they were sitting. “They’ll be on the next flight here.”

“I need an update,” Dick muttered and tried to stand, but Helena had pushed him back down by the shoulder. “What the hell, Helena?” he’d snapped, tone harsher than he had intended it to be.

Because who the hell did she think she was to try and keep him from finding out about Roy?

Didn’t she know he needed to know?

“They can’t tell you anything, Dick,” she had sighed, and Dick had screwed his eyes shut and taken in a shaky breath because she was right, and God he hated when she was right.

Why did she always have to be right?   


He didn’t fight it when she grabbed him and pulled him tight.

He didn’t fight it when his shoulders shook and the sobs came before he even knew they’d formed

“I felt him stop breathing.”

“I know,” she sighed and threaded her fingers through his hair that wasn’t matted with sweat and blood. “I know.”

* * *

He didn’t remember falling asleep.

He wasn’t sure how he’d managed to fall asleep.

But he had woken to yelling, not from one person, but two.

And for a blissful moment after being forced awake, he had forgotten. Forgotten that Roy had been shot and was probably in the morgue by then. Forgotten about the blood that had dried on his skin. Forgot the feeling of Roy’s chest falling and not rising again…   


At least until he had looked around and remembered.

Funny how an all white room, fluorescent lights, and the constant scent of antiseptic and sickness and death could force things back.

“I don’t give a flying fuck that I’m not on his HIPPA release!” Dick glanced over to the receptionist station.   


He was fairly certain he’d never seen Ollie’s face quite that shade of red.

He was fairly certain he’d never seen Dinah look ready to lunge across a counter and kill someone with her bare hands.

“He’s my son, do you understand that?!”   


“Sir, we can’t bend the rules just because…”

“Oh fuck the law!” Ollie shouted, and Dick watched as Dinah put a gentle hand on his shoulder, as if trying to reassure him that everything would be okay. As if everything already okay again.

As if the most likely scenario wasn’t that Roy was already in the basement with a sheet over his body and a tag on his toe.

“That’s my son back there,” Ollie shook his head, voice abruptly changing from angry to pained. Desperate for some information. Any information.

Even if it weren’t the information they wanted to hear.

“He’s my son.”

* * *

The cardiac intensive care unit was on the third floor of the hospital. The walls separating the patient rooms from the hall were made of glass, and Dick was pretty sure he hadn't seen that many nurses working one floor in his life.   


The waiting room there was at least nicer than the one in the ER. The chairs were more comfortable. Some of them even reclined. The colors were warmer. The floor was carpeted. The magazines were newer. The televisions showed whatever local stations they were picking up instead of the same seven informational advertisements that popped up on the ones downstairs.

In the two hours he’d been sitting in the waiting room, there had been three codes. Ollie had jumped every time he’d heard one being called, and Dick couldn’t blame him for it at all.

What if it was Roy?

By some act of mercy, Dinah had been on Roy’s HIPPA release.

Dick only hoped it wasn’t the only small mercy they’d be getting.

It seemed an eternity before a doctor had taken Dinah out into the hall for an update. It had seemed even longer before she’d returned to the group. Dick tried to search her face for a hint of something. Of anything. But she seemed an expert at keeping her expressions neutral, and Dick hated her for it.

“He lost a lot of blood,” she sighed and sat down next to Ollie, resting a hand on his thigh. “He was down for several minutes, but they got him back. They won’t know if there was any brain damage until he wakes up.”

Dick tried to stay focused as Dinah explained everything going on. The bullet had landed near his heart, barely missing his aorta. The compressions the paramedics performed had caused the bullet to nick that same artery. Had they gotten Roy into surgery even just a few minutes later, they would have been planning a funeral right then.

_ A few more hours and we still might be,  _ the pessimistic part of his brain said.

“He’s alive,” Dinah said gently, and Dick forced himself to look over at her. “He’s alive thanks to you.”

* * *

Roy’s room was tiny, and they were only permitted back two at a time. Not that there was much to do. He was unconscious. Wires seemed to run across every inch of skin he had, and IV lines seemed to connect to every last vein in his body. A tube ran down his throat, tape keeping it firmly in place. Another tube flowed into his chest, close to where the bullet had gone through.

Ollie sat leaned against the window, staring at Roy’s motionless figure. Dark circles had formed under his eyes, and it looked like the past several hours had aged him by decades.

Dinah had stepped out, letting Dick know he could go see Roy. That she was going to Roy’s apartment to take care of Lian and relieve whoever had been watching her. To try and figure out how the hell she was supposed to tell her her daddy had been shot and might die.

Dick had moved silently through the hall and into Roy’s room, 331. Directly across from the nurse’s station. Directly next to the on-call room.

He stopped outside the door and waited as a nurse handed him a yellow mesh gown to put over his clothes. The floor had seen a MRSA outbreak just a few days prior, and every precaution was being taken to keep the uninfected patients uninfected.

He scrubbed his hands down with the hand sanitizer dispensed just outside the room before heading in through the sliding glass door.

Seeing Roy through the window hadn't prepared Dick to see him in person nearly as much as he’d hoped it would.

Because he couldn’t hear the sound of mechanical breathing through the glass. Because he couldn’t hear the irregular beep of one of the monitors through the glass. Because he couldn’t feel an overwhelming sense of despair and of grief through the glass.

He watched as Ollie turned slightly. He acknowledged Dick with a slight nod before glancing back out the window, though there wasn’t much to look at.

The clock in the room read 11:09 PM.

Almost 24 hours since this mess had started.

Dick couldn’t imagine much was going on on the streets below at that hour, but he didn’t push it.

Snark and humor had their time and place. This was neither.

Dick stood just past the threshold for several minutes, unsure of what to do, what to say, where to go. Dinah had left her jacket hanging on the back of the chair by Roy’s bed. He wasn’t sure if he should sit there or leave it be. Ollie had taken the pullout couch.

Not that he could blame either of them.

They were the closest thing to parents Roy had. They deserved to claim every last place in that room.

Dick wondered if Bruce would have done the same had he been the one who had gotten shot.

“He was awake for a few minutes,” Ollie said after a moment, and Dick about jumped. Something about the room had made him feel incredibly desperate. Alone. Even with two other bodies occupying the space. “Not long. Glanced around a bit and fell back to sleep.”

Dick nodded and reluctantly sat on the edge of the chair by the bed. Dinah would be gone until late the next morning, if he had to guess. And as much as he didn’t want to leave Roy’s side, he’d leave the second she wanted to see him again.

“I should have acted sooner,” he spoke, voice barely above a whisper. For a moment, he was unsure he’d said them at all. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re quick, Dick,” Ollie sighed and glanced over at him, their eyes locking for just a moment.   


He knew that. God he knew that. He was quick and agile and an expert at outmaneuvering people. It was what he did. It was what his team  _ trusted him to do.  _ But he hadn't been quick enough. And here they were…

“But bullets are quicker,” Ollie finished, and Dick hated that there wasn’t so much of a hint of blame in the man’s voice. Because Dick deserved every last bit of blame he could get.

“You should go get some sleep,” Dick said after a moment, breaking Ollie’s gaze and turning back to face Roy. “I can keep an eye on him.”

“I can’t leave him,” Ollie shook his head, and Dick watched as he pulled a knee to his chest. “If something happens and I’m not here…”

_ I would never forgive myself. _

“I know,” Dick sighed and leaned back against the chair. “Me neither.”

* * *

It was 4:12 AM when Roy woke for good. Dick had been sat by his bedside, trying to focus on the soft sound of Ollie snoring and not on the sounds of the monitors attached to his best friend. But the beeping had gotten louder and more frequent, and for a moment, for a heart-sinking moment, he thought that this was it. That they had spent the past several hours just to wind up in the same place they would have if Roy had died on that cold, concrete floor.

But when Dick snapped his attention over to Roy, the redhead’s eyes were wide open. He was struggling, but it took Dick several seconds to figure out why. He quickly pressed the nurse call button, grateful that he still had his reflexes on his side after the emotional drain the past twenty-four hours had caused.

“Relax,” he said softly, grabbing Roy’s hand and trying to soothe him. Though Dick couldn’t blame him for struggling. He wasn’t sure he would have reacted much differently if he’d woken up with a tube shoved down his throat. “Don’t fight it.”

The chaos surrounding them seemed to have snapped Ollie awake, and Dick shot him a quick look that said ‘I got this.’ To his surprise, Ollie nodded and stepped back, ready to jump into action if Dick or the doctors needed him, ready to hang back if they needed him out of the way.  _ Thank God. _

Dick watched as Roy’s nurse rushed into the room, a doctor not far behind her. For a moment, he wondered if they had heard the beeping and thought the same thing he did.   


He didn’t push back when the nurse asked him to move. Getting in the way wouldn’t help Roy. Standing back and letting the professionals do the work they were trained to do would. “Mr. Harper?” the nurse asked, placing a hand on Roy’s shoulder. “The doctor’s going to remove the tube, okay? But we need you to calm down.”

Dick watched as Roy screwed his eyes shut and tried to do as he was told. “You’re doing great, Mr. Harper,” the doctor praised as he peeled the tape securing the tube away. “Do me a favor, okay? Breathe through your nose and wiggle your toes.”

Slowly but surely, Roy seemed to process the instructions. Dick watched as the doctor removed the tube without any further issue before setting it on a tray by the bed. “You’ll have a hell of a sore throat for a few days,” the doctor warned, and Roy shut his eyes and nodded. “Shouldn’t be anything too unbearable.”

“How’re you feeling, kiddo?” Ollie asked, finally moving to Roy’s side now that the chaos had died down.   


“Hurts,” Roy shut his eyes. His voice was hoarse and strained and weak in a way Dick never could have imagined hearing it.   


“Rate your pain on a scale from one to ten?” the doctor asked, and Dick shot Ollie a worried look. Ollie shook his head and glanced back toward Roy, and Dick hugged himself tightly.

“Seven,” Roy answered, eyes opening back up and glancing over at the pain chart on the wall, though Dick doubted he needed it.

Seven on a normal person was bad enough.

But a seven on a person who went head to head with the worst of the worst more nights than not?

Now that was bad.

“Keep pushing meds,” the doctor said to the nurse. “Alternate morphine and dilaudid…”

“No,” Roy shook his head, voice hundreds of times stronger than it had been only seconds prior. “No pain meds.”

Dick watched as Ollie exhaled and sat back down on the couch. “Roy,” he started, voice calm and parental, tones Dick had never heard Bruce use with them. “You just got shot. They opened your chest up. No one’s going to blame you if you…”

“No pain meds,” Roy repeated, more firmly that time.

“Okay,” the doctor nodded and scribbled something onto Roy’s chart. “But if you change your mind…”

Dick had only seen the look of pure determination that Roy had on his face a few times before. And maybe, just maybe, he would have found it charming had the situation not been so fucked. “I won’t.”

* * *

There was something that felt fundamentally wrong about seeing someone so strong, so determined, deteriorate and break. The Roy Harper Dick knew was fierce. A force to be reckoned with. And if something stood in the way of what he wanted? Well. God help that poor son of a bitch.

Maybe he should have left before things had gone this far south.

Dick wasn’t entirely sure he would have wanted any of his friends to see him in this state, had the roles been reversed.

But Roy was in pain. He was suffering. He was  _ miserable _ . And as much as Ollie tried to help, and as well-meaning as he really tried to be… Dick needed a friend with him too.   


It had taken two hours for the pain to go from uncomfortable to extreme, and Dick was more than a little impressed that it hadn't taken less time than that. But Roy had quickly gone from talking to keep himself distracted to silence to curled up on his good side, shaking like a leaf and sweating up a storm.

His fists were clenched tightly. His breathing was ragged. And God. It looked like it hurt just to breathe.

“You don’t have to do this, Roy,” Dick sighed. He had moved from the chair to the floor, resting his head against Roy’s bed and staring up at him. “They can get you…” he trailed off when Roy shook his head. Not the harsh refusals from before. Not the glares that had come when speaking had become difficult. Just a broken, slight shake of the head accompanying an expression that had gone from determined to miserable to broken all in the span of a few hours.

“Okay,” Dick said softly and reached up to take Roy’s hand in his own, wincing slightly when Roy squeezed it as hard as he could. “It’s okay,” he tried to soothe. “You’re okay.”

“Want Dinah,” Roy whimpered, voice so soft Dick wasn’t sure he’d heard it at all.   


“Okay,” Dick heard Ollie say from across the room, voice just as soft and cautious as Dick’s had been. “Okay,” he repeated and squeezed Roy’s shoulder gently. “I’ll go get her.”

“I can…” Dick started to speak, but Ollie held up a hand to silence him.

“I’ll find her,” the man sighed and grabbed his jacket as he headed toward the door. “You stay.”

“Don’t go,” Roy begged, eyes locking with Dick’s.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Dick promised, never letting go of his friend’s hand. Never wanting to let go of Roy ever again.   


* * *

Dinah had to push Dick to leave. He hadn't fought leaving the room. He’d made a promise that he’d let Ollie and Dinah have dibs on the space when they needed to be with Roy and when Roy needed to be with them. But he had started to head back toward the waiting room when Dinah put a hand on his shoulder.

"You should head home, Dick," Dinah spoke, and Dick just shook his head. What could he do at home other than worry himself sick? What if something happened to Roy and Dick wasn't there to help? What if something happened to Roy and he was left alone? Even though Dick knew he wouldn't really be alone. Ollie hadn't left the room since they'd been permitted back, and Dinah had come the second he'd asked for her.

"I'm fine," he tried to insist, but Dinah shook her head and squeezed his shoulder in an almost motherly way.

"You haven't slept since you were in the waiting room," she said, voice gentle and kind. "Go home. Get some rest. And for God's sake, wash your hair." Dick shut his eyes and took a shaky breath. She was right. He needed rest. And he really could use a shower. Especially with Roy's blood still matted in his hair. "I know you want to take care of him," Dinah continued, and Dick forced himself to look over at her. Like Ollie, the past day and a half had seemed to age her by years. Dark circles had formed under his eyes, and he was pretty sure he'd never seen her without makeup before. "And we're so, so grateful for that. But you need to take care of yourself too, okay?"

"Okay," he spoke softly, staring down at the floor. "Okay. I can do that."

He started down the hall and hit the down button on the elevator and tried to figure out how exactly he was supposed to get home. Which home to go to. He didn't have the energy to drive the few hours it would take to get back to Bludhaven or Gotham. And he was pretty sure he couldn't handle the negative energy that was sure to be flowing through the Outsiders' latest safehouse.

He needed to be around people, he was pretty sure of that. But the people he could be around right then, but the people he could surround himself right then were just going to make the situation worse...

"You look like hell," a voice said from behind him, and Dick all but jumped out of his skin. Christ. He'd never been that jumpy before. He turned his head to the side and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Helena standing behind him.

“Yeah, well it’s been a rough day,” Dick sighed and wrapped his arms around himself, turning back to face the elevator doors and wondering why hospital elevators weren’t faster than this one seemed to be.

“You headed out?”

“Not for long.”

He would leave for exactly as long as it took to shower and get some sleep. Then he’d change his clothes and camp back out in the waiting room. Hopefully by then it would be a different waiting room. One with less comfortable chairs and older magazines and less sense of hopelessness and despair and grief. Hopefully on a floor where every surface didn’t seem to carry the sickly sweet smell of death.

He breathed a sigh of relief when the elevator doors finally opened up. He stepped inside and hit the button for the lobby and frowned when Helena stepped in beside him. “What are you doing?” he raised an eyebrow, turning to face her.

“You haven’t slept in over twenty four hours,” she answered and stretched her arms over her head, letting her back pop. “And I’m betting all this catches up with you once you’re out of here. No way in hell am I letting you drive anywhere, Grayson. We can only handle one emergency at a time.”

True to Helena’s suspicion, everything started to flood back to Dick as soon as he felt the elevator start to move down. A gunshot. A strangled noise. Blood.

God there had been so much blood…

“Dick?” Helena asked, but her voice sounded muffled. Far away. Like someone had shoved his head under water and held it there. Like she wanted him to swim back up to her, but he couldn’t and he was going to die. Dear God he was going to die in a goddamned hospital elevator with highly trained medical professionals just a door away…. “Dick?”

He blinked and looked over at her, wondering when he’d been pushed into a sitting position on the ground. When they’d gotten out of the elevator and into the main lobby of the hospital.When a thick fog had seemed to settle over his head, refusing to let go no matter how much he wanted to fight it.   


“He stopped breathing.”

“I know,” Helena spoke softly and sat down beside him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and pulling him into her side. “But he’s breathing now.”

Dick nodded and shut his eyes tightly, hiding his face in the crook of her neck. “He’s breathing now,” he repeated, voice shaking more than he would have liked it to. And really… Wasn’t that the important thing?

* * *

Dick ended up sleeping almost a full day, and as much as he wanted to hate himself for it, he figured his body needed it. Adrenaline come-downs were always hard on a body, and as much as he wished he were above limits like that, he wasn’t.

He showered again, changed his clothes, and made it back to the hospital in near record time. By some miracle, every light had been green and several parking spaces had been empty.

Dinah had sent him a message with Roy’s new room number. No longer in the ICU, thank God.

He made his way to the fifth floor and down the hall to Roy’s new room, not directly across from the nurse’s station and not directly next to an on-call room. Good signs, he hoped.

The door was wide open, and Dick smiled slightly when he saw Ollie and Dinah sitting on chairs beside the bed and Lian sitting on the bed, curled up next to Roy, eating a cup of jello that was an absolutely unnatural shade of green.

“Hey,” Roy forced a smile, turning to the doorway to face Dick. He could have cried with relief when he saw Roy’s face had regained some of its color. That his eyes had regained some semblance of life.

“Hey,” Dick responded, his smile equally as forced. “You look better.”

“Feel better,” Roy commented and motioned for Dick to come in.

Dick headed into the room, but didn’t take a seat. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he had intruded on family time, and he didn’t want to overstay his welcome.

“Hi, Dickie,” Lian smiled and waved at him, and Dick smiled back before hesitantly sitting down on the edge of the bed.

“You taking good care of your daddy?” Dick asked, turning to face her and Roy.

Lian nodded in affirmation before setting the now empty jello cup back on Roy’s tray. “Really good care of him,” she assured, and Dick couldn’t help but smile when Roy smiled at her. “He’s stuck here a whole week, though, and he says the food is really bad, but really it’s better than what he makes at home.”

If Dinah and Ollie had agreed to let Lian visit, Dick was sure it was a good sign. He was sure things were getting better. That they’d keep getting better.

“Word of advice, Dick?” Roy asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“Shoot,” Dick responded almost automatically, a horrified expression crossing his face when he realized what it was he’d said. “Oh God… That’s not what I…”

“Relax,” Roy laughed and rolled his eyes. Dick nodded and tried to re-catch his breath. Tried to let the relief that Roy was  _ laughing  _ flood over him because just a few days ago, Dick had been certain he’d never hear Roy laugh again. “Anyway, Dick?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t get shot.”

And Dick wasn’t sure if it was the relief flooding through him or the stress and anxiety catching up to him and making him break, but he laughed. Actually laughed for the first time in what felt like months.  _ Don’t get shot.  _ “Deal,” he promised, taking Roy’s hand and shaking it firmly.

“And Dick?” Roy asked again, voice more serious that time.

“Yeah?” a brief hesitation because Dick wasn’t entirely sure what was going to come next. If he’d like the words that were about to be shared or not.

“Owe ya one.”

A smile crossed his lips, and Dick all but fell back onto the bed to stare up at the ceiling. “I’ll hold you to it.”


End file.
